Today in History
Published 3:34 pm Thursday, May 6, 2010
Today is Sunday, May 9, the 129th day of 2010. There are 236 days left in the year. This is Mother’s Day.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
@History item:On May 9, 1980, 35 people were killed when a freighter, the Summit Venture, rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section of the southbound span to collapse.
ON THIS DATE
@History item:In 1754, a cartoon in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette showed a snake cut in pieces, with each part representing an American colony; the caption read, “JOIN, or DIE.”
In 1961, FCC chairman Newton N. Minow decried the majority of television programming as a “vast wasteland” in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.
In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.
In 1978, the bullet-riddled body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, who’d been abducted by the Red Brigades, was found in an automobile in the center of Rome.
In 1994, South Africa’s newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first black president.
In 2005, the news and opinion website The Huffington Post was launched.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace is 92. Rock musician Nokie Edwards (The Ventures) is 75. Actor Albert Finney is 74. Actress-turned-politician Glenda Jackson is 74. Musician Sonny Curtis (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) is 73. Producer-director James L. Brooks is 70. Singer Tommy Roe is 68. Singer-musician Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield and Poco) is 66. Actress Candice Bergen is 64. Singer Billy Joel is 61. Rock singer-musician Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick) is 60. Actress Wendy Crewson is 54. Actor John Corbett is 49. Singer Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) is 48. Actress Rosario Dawson is 31. .
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
“God knows that a mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul. But because I happen to be a parent of almost fiercely maternal nature, I praise casualness. It seems to me the rarest of virtues.” — Phyllis McGinley, American poet and author (1905-1978).
Associated Press
